Niklas Jansson
patreon
Other Worlds TTRPG redesigns
🕑 Added 2025-08-08 16:16:29 +0000 UTCOther Worlds is a rather obscure TTRPG from 1983. I haven't seen much (if any) fan art for it. Other Suns uses a system similar to BRP (Basic Role Playing / Runequest) by Chaosium, but perhaps they didn't license it like the Swedish Drakar & Demoner did.
So, it uses a D100 percentage system with some D20 and D6 rolls here and there. I haven't looked into how it works exactly, but there are a lot of tables... It wasn't unusual that games from the '70s and early '80s desperately wanted to be more realistic computer simulations, and some players were indeed happy to dive right into that sort of thing. Some of us didn't have anything better to do either. Really, there was a bit of a window there--home computers being uncommon and limited (Altair 8800, Vic-20, ZX Spectrum), but good enough for generating tables. Other Suns arguably goes a bit overboard with solar system generation and spaceflight rules. This clashes a bit with the more lighthearted theme of the game.
What makes Other Suns stand out a bit is that it's a very early furry TTRPG. Some might argue that furry hadn't even coalesced in '83 and it's a retroactive label to apply in this case. Others... might start a heated discussion. Regardless, Other Suns really does look like furry (on the slightly horny side of the spectrum). It's also quite funny in how it treat humans--they're given an awful background story and are mistreated in several of the illustrations. Quite anti-"HFY".
The playable aliens of Other Suns include: Cat, Fox, Lion, Squirrel, "Skiltaire", Bears, Komodo dragon, a weird 3-stage exoskeleton thing, Centaur cocker spaniel, Human, and there are some robots.
Judging by some recent posts by Other Suns original author (who is now a writer), realism is still a priority, and the background story might be retconned to work with a couple of books they wrote later. Personally I'm more inclined towards "soft" scifi and not giving any sort of scientific explanation for the various species other than supplying a couple of suggestive creation myths. It can be left up to imagination or a GM's adventure.
Some other notable furry TTRPGs came out years later in the '80s, like Albedo and Justifiers. Traveller came out in '77 and had wolves and cat people, but those feel more incidental to me, like Wing Commander's Kilrathi. Justifiers has nice illustrations but it seems the artist was super fluent at drawing realistic B&W cartoon strips with just humans, so the animal people ended up looking rather like... animal /people/. The weapons are super generic too. The most interesting design was probably a sort of Blaster Master vehicle with the wheels on legs. I'm always a sucker for those kind of designs. Not really sure where they originated...
Comments
B. Nickey
Always brilliant to see some fresh art, except now I want to see your take on the Albedo spaceships and characters. Being of an age, those early 80's rpgs and comics have that special glow of a pre-teen's appreciation.
Tom's Under
I remember Other Suns coming out. I believe it almost got published by Chaosium. I never owned it or read it, now I would like to read a copy.
